


Her fathers voice

by KiwiLombax15



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, She needs more love, Symmetra is a canon autistic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8352307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiwiLombax15/pseuds/KiwiLombax15
Summary: A drabble exploring Symmetra's past and motivations.





	

Her father called her his little deer. It was a name that fit her well, young Satya a twitchy, large eyed creature, delicate, sensitive and easily startled. In her memories of childhood, her father stood out boldly, large and powerful from a lifetime of manual labour, gentle as a breeze to his strange daughter.

Her siblings he picked up and tossed about playfully, as strong and safe as a fortress. Never Satya. He didn’t need telling, knowing it only terrified her to be swung into a whirling dervish of chaos and dizziness. She was his princess, the strange, almost ethereal child who padded silently through the house on tiptoe and hummed in ways others found odd.

The world was louder to her, noises standing out bolder. The streets of Hyderabad were crowded and noisy, the walls of their cheap flat thin. There was always noise, her only recourse to hum and cover her ears with hands that longed to flap. He seemed to have a sixth sense for her distress, his voice deep and low and thrumming in her chest in just the right way to sooth her, bundling her into his lap and telling her tales of indian folklore to drown out the noise and freeing her hands to flap and flutter. He was loud and bold in a way that felt right. Solid. Secure.

Sometimes he joined in the humming, which annoyed her. They were her sounds, her rhythms to focus on when the world started cracking at the edges. She would scowl and complain, and he would laugh in the way that didn’t scratch at her brain like shards of broken glass, like the cackles of the old women gossiping on street corners. 

Her mother was just as understanding of her, but was a more distant figure, working all hours her father couldn’t and more to keep the struggling family afloat. She was a wispy, quiet woman. Satya couldn’t help it if her loud, soothing father stood out more.

The crowded city was harsh on her, noisy and dirty, the free school her mother sent her to packed with other children who watched her odd mannerisms with cold owlishness. Her siblings were busy playing with each other or working. Only her father kept the loneliness at bay, bringing home recycled paper and cheap pencils to let her indulge her habit of drawing houses and buildings. His voice wove its way through her formative years.

“What a lovely house! But where would they escape to if there is a fire, my little deer?”

“Well, where do you think is the most logical place to put windows? Ah, really? Why do you think that?”

“An interesting place to put a door, little deer. I see, I see…that makes sense.”

She clung to him wherever she could, a solid anchor point to moor herself to. She could manage crowds with him there, clinging like a limpet with one hand and flapping with the other, secure in the knowledge he would descend like the wrath of Kali on any who dared mock her.

To lose him sent her into a spin, lost in crowds and chaos in confusion. Like any deer, she would bolt.

Her memories of that part of her life are chaotic, a blur of a stumble in the market separating them, a whirl of terrifying crowds, the squeal of brakes and the scream of bystanders, and a terrible pain on the left side of her body. She remembers her father stroking her hair, softly soothing her. She’d never seen him cry before.

She comes home less than when she left it. She’s grateful she was right handed anyway, but so many tasks are harder now, so many things like dressing and bathing more difficult than she thought with only one hand. There are prostheses, fancy ones with nerve caps and connectors, but with the family finances as they were, they were as distant and unobtainable as the moon.

The family started to drown. Her medical costs are mounting, antibiotics and painkillers. They could no longer afford the rare luxury of the dancing lessons she loved, sharp young eyes noticing how often her parents plates were empty at dinner. Few things were hidden from a smart child. She saw the stress on her parents faces and knew it was her fault. 

Then the man from Vishkar came. Tall and elegant, dark skin standing out starkly against pristine white clothing. He stood out boldly in the drab house as he gently spoke to her parents about test scores and scholarships and financial aid. In her memories, he’s bold and clear, pristine and ordered and perfectly groomed.

“I’m told it’s something to do with the way the autistic brain is wired.” He had said. “Many on the spectrum show unusual skill in hard light weaving. This could be a bold new opportunity for her.”

She would have to go away. She saw the grief in her fathers eyes and hesitated, then saw the thin, frayed clothes, the exhaustion on her mothers face, and made up her mind.

Her bags were packed within a day. What Vishkar wanted, Vishkar got, and it wasted no time. She’d leaned out the window of the wonderful floating car and bid her farewells, her father the last to say goodbye. He’d pulled her in for a hug, his deep voice rumbling in his chest as he whispered encouraging words to her. She held the way it resonated in her heart, trying to cling to the comfort it gave as they pulled away. In her distress, she set up a quick stimming pace.

The man from Vishkar leaned over and gently grabbed her wrist with a smile.

“Now now, Satya. As a student of the Architect Academy, remember you are in the public eye.”

She’d never been banned from stimming before. She missed her father with an ache that stung. Tears prickling the corners of her eyes, she stared out the car window the whole trip to Utopaea and tried to calm her spinning brain without her usual tricks.

The city helped. Bright and clean and orderly, not a thing out of place, Utopaea may as well have been made for her. She looked at the world of order and stability and fell in love.

The Architect Academy was a mixed bag. Her new prosthetic shone like marble and moved like part of her, her dancing lessons resumed and the hard light manipulation was ridiculously easy, but the ban on stimming bit hard and her class mates took her struggle to maintain control and not break out into a meltdown as standoffishness. She was lonely. And her father was nowhere near. She threw herself into her studies, realizing only now how her fathers innocent questions when they drew together had influenced her to look at her creations with a logical eye, mixing beautiful form with perfect function. She was the golden child, the star in Vishkars crown.

She wanted to go home.

She could never go home again. The man from Vishkar only smiled when she asked and said she was needed here.

There was always someone from the company nearby, a mentor (A handler _No don’t think that Satya these people are helping you_ ) to guide her. They were always nearby.

She grew. She graduated. Her superiors decided her skills were needed for more proactive measures. She was sent out to the field. There were…things done she wasn’t sure about. A war between the things she’d been taught by Vishkar and the quieter, gentler lessons her father taught her. What was right, her morals or her training? The mental battle exhausted her, one more thought to add to her spinning brain they never let her ease to her satisfaction. Flicking hardlight beads through her fingers was a poor substitute. In the end she gave up the mental battle. She was too tired. And surely order was the only way forward, right?

Right?

Brazil exhausted her further, the young, angry DJ and his equally young and equally angry supporters driving them out. No one said anything to her face, but she saw the looks, saw the whispers.

Their golden girl was cracking.

Her skills were all she had. Fear poured into her life in a slow wave, drowning her in it. She threw herself into her work, clinging to the one thing she’d worked for so hard. In her hands, as she worked, hardlight constructs flashed and flickered, thrumming softly, a poor recreation of what she wanted, what she ached for.

Her fathers voice.

**Author's Note:**

> Want more like this? Support the writer here! https://ko-fi.com/fruitbird


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